Page 55 of Stupid Dirty

Because I guess this means I have no more reason to stay with them.

It hits me like a bucket of ice water. We both said this was a temporary arrangement to keep everyone safe until their dad left. There’s no other reason for Cade to share his teeny tiny living space with me.

I’m sure he’ll ask me to pack up my stuff as soon as my shift is over. Not in a mean way, of course. It makes sense. He doesn’t need me cramping his style.

It’s not like we agreed we are anything to each other. Apart from two friends who have now fucked, which he probably saw as a form of stress relief.

It’s fine. Everything will go back to the way it was before. He’ll still be my best friend, I’ll still have his family in my life, and I’m used to putting up with my dad’s bullshit.

It’s fine.

Everything will be fine.

I feel the sting in my palm before I realize the wrench has slipped, sending my hand jerking onto a dirty-ass screw that’s sticking out of the motor mount. It chews through my skin like it’s mulch.

Looking down, there’s a lot more blood than I expected. I can see raw flesh where the screw tore into my palm, and blood is running down my forearm until it drips onto the floor. The sight of my blood soaking into the concrete makes the world tilt.

“Oh shit,” I say, but my voice sounds like it’s coming from far away, and it’s muffled by blood rushing in my ears.

Obviously, Ford was right. I should have been paying more attention.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I’ve spent the whole day in a kind of pleasant daze. I probably look like a love-struck teenager, but I don’t even care.

No one who’s had the quality and quantity of orgasms that I’ve had this weekend should care about anything.

Dad is gone, hopefully for good this time. Or at least for a while. Mom answered the phone when I called to check in and sounded not-dead or dying; the girls are safe with Jaz and will be home tomorrow.

Silas works until 6pm today, and I don’t start my next shift until 6am tomorrow. Which means we have twelve whole hours of privacy to continue to explore whatever my de-virginized little dirtbag wants to.

It would be physically impossible to bite back my smile. Why try?

It’s only 4pm now, so I still have a couple of hours to kill until Silas gets home. Normally, I would spend it napping, but I’m too amped up to sit still. I move around the trailer, cleaning upwhatever I can find to make it look a little nicer for him and the girls when they get back tomorrow.

I’m sprawled out, squeezing toothpaste into some of the smaller holes left by Dad’s path of destruction, when I hear the door open. Confused, I push my chest off the kitchen floor to see who it is.

“Mom?”

“It’s me.” Silas’ voice reaches me as he walks through the doorway. A flush of excitement surges through me, which is a new but not unwelcome development, and I scramble to my feet to go meet him. There are too many questions running through my head to get any answers.

Why is he home so early? Why does he sound weird and tense? And with this new thing between us, how am I supposed to greet him? I’ve spent all day here playing happy housewife and never thought about whether I’m supposed to kiss him when he walks in the door.

Do Iwantto kiss him when he walks in the door?

“What happened? You miss me so much you couldn’t make it through a whole—” My words trail off when I see why he’s home so early. “Silas, what the fuck happened?”

His gray hoody, the one that I love on him because it’s so fucking soft to touch, is spattered with dried blood. He has the glassy-eyed look of someone who’s still kind of shocky, and he’s glancing around the room like he doesn’t totally know what to do with himself.

The cause of all this, I’m assuming, is also why his hand is wrapped in several dirty fucking shop towels.

I grab his hand. He flinches, which makes me feel shitty, but I don’t have time to baby him. Whatever’s under here, it’s clearly serious and getting dirtier by the second.

“What the actual shit happened? Did you drive yourself home like this?”

I get busy unknotting the rags to find the source of the bleeding while Silas mumbles his response.

“Ford dropped me off. I didn’t wanna go to the hospital. It’s fine, it’s just a cut.”

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